1. Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of pay telephone call completion and, in particular, to a pay telephone call completion method and apparatus permitting a user to make multiple toll-free calls from a pay telephone through a long distance telephone network associated with the toll-free calls for no extra fee due to the owner of the pay telephone from the caller, the called party or long distance service provider.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
The party associated with a toll-free number, just as every long distance telephone customer in the United States, must select a single preferred carrier to carry the traffic, typically, a long distance toll service provider. For example, a hotel chain owner that wishes to provide toll-free services to its potential guests must select a single preferred long distance carrier that is associated with the toll-free telephone number in memory of a database. Referring to FIG. 1A, a typical toll-free telephone number may be 800-55-H-OTEL that is associated with HOTEL and their single selected carrier, for example, XYZ long distance carrier, in memory database 25 of a local telephone service provider (which may also provide toll services) not selected by HOTEL. According to the prior art, a potential hotel guest may go to a payphone 30, for example, in an airline terminal and make a toll-free call to 1-800-55H-OTEL. A local switch LS 20-1, for example, a No. 5 ESS system available from Lucent Technologies, Inc., among other suitable local switching systems, receives the dialed number of the called party (1-800-55H-OTEL) and refers to carrier database 25 to determine the identity of the long distance network 10 of the single selected long distance telephone service provider associated with the dialed toll-free telephone number. The local telephone service provider, typically, a regional telephone company, then refers the call for processing to the associated long distance service provider.
The associated toll carrier and owner of network 10 receives the toll-free telephone number at a toll switch point of ingress to network 10 at ingress switch (IS) 15-1, translates the dialed number to a routing number and determines egress switch (ES) 15-2 from the area code and telephone number of the called party. A tandem switch 15-3 may be required to permit a linking connection for the duration of a call from office 15-1 to office 15-2. The network 10 terminates the call from egress switch 15-2 via the same or another local telephone company service provider and their local switch LS 20-2 to the s called party terminal 40.
The owner of the pay telephone 30 from which the call was placed may be any of the local telephone company, a long distance service provider, the airport or yet other entities. The payphone owner is entitled to receive a fee, for example, less than one US dollar, (typically, thirty cents) for the use of the pay telephone 30, even though the caller pays nothing for the call. Some carriers pass the cost to the called party. Thus, the called party, in this example, the hotel operator HOTEL, may be held responsible for at least a portion of the fee that is due and owing to the payphone owner 30 by the associated long distance carrier and owner of network 10.
When the caller has completed their call to a first called hotel operator, for example, to try to obtain a hotel room reservation and wants to make another call because the first hotel operator has no rooms available, the caller typically hangs up, obtains renewed dial tone from the local telephone company service provider for payphone 30 and places a second call. The above process of looking up the associated carrier and charging that carrier a fee for the use of the pay phone is repeated. Consequently, the associated long distance carrier, be it the same carrier or a different carrier, will be responsible for a second fee, the same less than one dollar fee, that would eventually be chargeable at least in part to the second hotel operator.
Thus, with present methods and procedures, whenever multiple calls must be placed via the same associated long distance network, the caller is inconvenienced by the present pay phone call completion process because the caller must hang up, obtain renewed dial tone from the local service provider and make a new call each time the caller wants to dial a new hotel chain operator. The local telephone company service provider is inconvenienced because they have to provide renewed dial tone and perform repeated look-ups in database 25 for long distance carriers associated with each number dialed and repeatedly refer new calls for handling to an associated long distance carrier. And the long distance service provider for the first call via network 10 is inconvenienced because they must repeatedly respond to the local telephone company requests for service and be responsible for multiples of the fee owed to the owner of the pay telephone 30 used to make the first, second and further calls, so long as they are the associated long distance telephone carrier.
Thus, there exists an opportunity in the art for an improved pay phone call completion method and apparatus that eliminates the inconveniences inherent in making many toll-free telephone calls from a pay telephone.
According to the principles of the present invention, a caller may enter a list of toll-free telephone numbers in a caller preferred sequence: for example, hotel operator A, hotel operator B and hotel operator C. The network operator associated with the call to hotel operator A provides an application server 50 with a database 55, the server being programmed according to the present invention. Once the first call to hotel operator A is referred to network 10, the network 10 can route all the calls from the same pay phone 30 in the preferred sequence so long as network 10 is the single, selected long distance service provider. Thus, at the conclusion of a first call to hotel operator A which may result in not obtaining a room reservation, the network 10 may be signaled, for example, by a special dialed command or voice command indicating the completion of the first call without the caller""s having to hang up and to dial the next telephone number and so on until a room reservation is successfully made.
A toll communications network, according to the present invention, may refer to a local telephone company network, a long distance/toll network 10 or a different long distance/toll network 11. Consequently, a method for permitting multiple toll-free calls in a toll telecommunications network from a pay telephone comprises the steps of: 1) receiving a first toll-free call in the toll telecommunications network from the pay telephone, 2) determining the identity of a single carrier of the toll telecommunications network associated with the first toll-free call, 3) completing the first toll-free call to a called party, 4) during processing of the first toll-free call and prior to receiving a signal indicating the termination of a network connection to the pay telephone, for example, the caller actuating the switchhook of the pay telephone, receiving a second toll-free call by the single selected carrier associated with the first toll-free call from the pay telephone, 5) determining the identity of the single carrier associated with the second toll-free call, and 6) responsive to the identity of the single carrier being the same single carrier, completing the second toll-free call without additional fee by the single carrier.
The caller may signal their desire to have the second call routed by using a prearranged dialed tone sequencexe2x80x94such as *N (for next call). Alternatively, the caller may speak a command that is interpreted by a speech recognition unit. The caller may signal the new call by signaling termination of the first, receiving dial tone from the network 10 and dialing the next toll-free telephone number without alerting local switch 20-1. Similarly, in this embodiment, the caller may speak commands that may begin the next call.
If the next call in sequence is associated with another long distance service provider, the network 10 may suggest the caller permit the network to place the next call to a number associated with a customer of the network 10 instead. The process may continue until all the telephone numbers of the dialed sequence of telephone numbers associated with the same long distance service provider has been completed, and then the caller may be routed to the next long distance telephone service subscriber associated with the next telephone number in sequence that is not associated with the first telephone number dialed. Typically, this can only be performed with the agreement of the second carrier. If the caller wants to proceed anyway with the call, the call may be routed (with the agreement of the other long distance service provider) directly to that service provider. At any time, the caller may disconnect but typically after the caller has placed as many toll-free calls associated with the same carrier as they want.